When a resource or good becomes more efficient to consume, the consumption is expected to decrease. However, the consumption actually increases due to reduced costs resulting in increased demands.
This took me a while to understand because it seemed to be explained by simple price elasticity to me and I thought I was missing the “paradox” part of it. The “paradox” comes from directly relating efficiency and consumption without involving price elasticity at all.
But I still think it’s intuitive if you have a realistic world view.
Increasing number of lanes doesn’t lead to reduced traffic; just more people opting to use the traffic lanes because of perceived increased road availability, thereby increasing the traffic.
Increasing engine efficiency doesn’t need to lesser emissions. It leads to cheaper fuel which leads to more travel.
Interesting videos:
